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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

of a Hertzog-produced book will be superior throughout. Thisbook has added charm from the illustrations of H. D. Bugbee,but it is unfortunate that the Jos6 Cisneros map opposite pageone shows Mustang Draw and Sulphur Springs Creek as tribu-taries of North Concho.H. BAILEY CARROLLThe University of TexasThe Katy Railroad and the Last Frontier. By V. V. Masterson.Norman, (University of Oklahoma Press), 1952- Pp. 312.$4.00.There are few forces in American history that have generatedas much real drama and as many instances of deep human interestas did those arising from the building of the railroads across thewestern frontiers during the latter half of the nineteenth' century.The wild and woolly great Southwest could never have beenbridled and tamed without the civilizing effects of the railroad.Yet the actual building of the railroad across the frontier areasproduced in its immediate wake almost every uncivilized expe-rience known to man. The tycoons of money and industry foughteach other with no quarters given and none asked. Jay Gould,Bob Parsons, John Scullin, Russell Sage, Grenville M. Dodge,and others were big, rough, determined, and shrewd in everysense of these words. It apparently took this kind of leader toovercome the obstacles nature put in the way of building rail-roads across the trackless country. When the hazards of naturewere not blocking the progress of the railroad builders, humanhandicaps in the form of Indians, robbers, panics, and unscru-pulous competitors were enough to discourage all but the strong-est of heart.In forty-one rather short, pointed chapters, the author tracesthe history of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad from itsbirth in Emporia, Kansas, on September 2o, 1865, to the presentday. The bulk of the story, however, deals with the years of theactual building of the railroad. The book shows a prodigiousamount of research. Seemingly, not one mile of the vast Katysystem has been overlooked. The reader, through the vivid verbalpictures of Mr. Masterson, has a grandstand seat for watchingthe almost day by day progress of the road as it moved down